You are here

Politics

Benchmarks

From an article titled "Administration foiled by own Iraq goals" in the LA Times:

The Bush administration's decision to set benchmarks for measuring the progress of the Iraq mission is now seen by some U.S. officials as a costly blunder that has only aided the White House's critics in Congress and its foes in Iraq. Administration officials saw them as realistic goals that would prod the Iraqi government toward reconciliation, while helping sustain political support for the effort at home. The yardsticks include steps vital to Iraq's stability: passage of a law to divide oil revenue among the key communities, reforms to allow more members of Saddam Hussein's party back into the government, and elections to divide power in the provinces. Yet now, with the major goals still out of reach, the administration is playing down their importance. With an interim report on the U.S. effort due out today, administration officials instead are emphasizing other goals” some of which are less ambitious but have been attained. Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, recently told reporters that while the benchmarks remain important, "We have to look on a wider scale than the benchmarks themselves." In private, many officials were more scathing in their critique, saying that defining the goals in such a way galvanized resistance in Iraq and gave war critics a way to argue that the U.S. mission was falling short.

I think this is a fine illustration of one of the big problems. These guys see this as a game. Therefore, they think that defining goals was a mistake because it has aided war critics in arguing that the effort is falling short. The problem isn't how short the effort is falling. It's that people know how it is failing.

Cheney

This week The Washington Post ran a series of articles (link) examining Cheney's role in crafting policy in the Bush administration. The Week magazine (link) asks if Cheney has gone too far:

It was Cheney who decided that the Geneva Conventions should not apply to captured terrorists, instituted interrogation tactics that many consider torture, and insisted that the administration could monitor phone calls and e-mails without warrants.

Has Cheney gone too far? YES!

Tags: 

What I Have in Common with George Bush

crocs.jpgAbout a week ago I bought myself a pair of black crocs after they received rave reviews from the rest of my family. Then today I see this: Bush Endorses Crocs

Not Ethical

Careful. Don't choke on the irony.

Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical... - GWB

Link HT: GKB Twould be nice to have a viable candidate with a consistent ethic regarding the value of human life. I haven't seen it.

Tags: 

Presidential Forum on Faith, Values & Poverty

Jim Wallis of Sojourners organized the above-titled forum that was shown on CNN last night featuring Edwards, Obama, and Clinton answering questions about their faith and its relation to their presidential aspirations. David Kuo's take on the forum is here and on the Dems and faith in general is here. Andrew Sullivan's take is here. One of the more memorable moments for me was when Edwards, like most of the rest of us, couldn't bring himself to confess a specific sin. On the positive side, it was good that Edwards said this:

O'BRIEN: If you think something is morally wrong, though, you morally disagree with it, as president of the United States, don't you have a duty to go with your moral belief? EDWARDS: No, I think that, first of all, my faith, my belief in Christ plays an enormous role in the way I view the world. But I think I also understand the distinction between my job as president of the United States, my responsibility to be respectful of and to embrace all faith beliefs in this country because we have many faith beliefs in America. And for that matter we have many faith beliefs in the world. And I think one of the problems that we've gotten into is some identification of the president of the United States with a particular faith belief as opposed to showing great respect for all faith beliefs.

...as opposed to the "inject faith into policy" from Hillary and the "biblical injunction" for policy from Obama. I think I know what they meant (in Edwards words, their "...belief in Christ plays an enormous role in the way [they] view the world", but I like Edward's acknowledgment that there can be a big down side of the president wearing his faith on his sleeve and allowing it to shape policy rather than the constitution and the law and personal freedom and what's best for the country as a whole. The transcript is here. Here are the clips from YouTube (with poor quality audio that is out of sync with the video):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pages

Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer